Willenator Unscripted

Because Normal Is Overrated

Blog

  • Forza Horizon 6

    The new Forza Horizon 6 game launches in a day. I’m super excited to play. I restarted my GamePass subscription just to be able to play. I thought about purchasing the game, but my wife has wanted the subscription again for awhile now, so we both benefit doing it this way.

    Forza is the reason I own an Xbox. I first played Forza Horizon 3 years ago at a friends house when I was visiting. I became hooked because the racing was a bunch of fun. I remember saving up to purchase an Xbox One because I wanted to play the game more. I had never owned a Playstation or Xbox before that because I mainly played on PC. I remember my wife being surprised when I told her I wanted to get an Xbox simply to play a racing game. We’ve used it to play a bunch of other stuff since, but Forza Horizon is still the game that I use it for.

    I’ve owned every Forza Horizon game since 3. When I heard 6 is coming out, I knew I was going to play it. I actually upgraded my Xbox to the Series X to see how good Forza Horizon 5 played on it compared to the Xbox One. I can’t wait to see how Forza Horizon 6 looks because I actually just got a new TV not too long ago that has the higher frame rate to take advantage of the graphics the Series X can push.

    Tomorrow night will be the big test to see how it all plays. I have the game preinstalled already, so I am ready the minute it goes live! It’s going to be awesome!

  • New Fitbit Air

    My first fitness tracker was a Fitbit. I don’t even remember the model. It was quite a ways back. I just remember enjoying having a small device on my wrist to tell the time and see how I was doing with steps and calories. It wasn’t much, but I still used it.

    Fast forward to now, and I use an Apple Watch and have for a few years now. I like the watch and all the abilities, but they are starting to wear on me. I get a notification on my wrist, my phone, and if I’m on my Mac Mini, I get one there too. I’m starting to feel like the watch is becoming a bit much.

    So when I saw the announcement of the Fitbit Air, I was instantly intrigued because it offers that tracking of a bunch of health metrics without the screen. That seems very appealing to me at the moment. The price is also nice at $100, but I don’t know if I would pull the trigger because Google does put some of the health stuff behind a premium subscription where Apple health offers a ton for free.

    The debate comes down to $100 tracker and possibly paying $9.99 per month for the extra stuff or spending $400 on an Apple watch and getting the health stuff for free. Hmm. The other debate is Google vs Apple when it comes to health stuff. I kind of trust the privacy of Apple a little bit better, but I’m sure Google knows everything about me too since I use their products as well.

    Decisions decisions.

  • I Gave In

    I mentioned awhile back that I was very tempted to play World of Warcraft (WOW) again with the launch of the newest expansion: Midnight. I kept watching videos about it and stuff that was going on in the game, and it finally got to me. I purchased the expansion. I fired up my subscription again. I jumped back into the game.

    I’m really enjoying the Midnight content. I realized that I never really finished the content in The War Within, so there was some stuff that I had missed out on. I could have gone back and played through the later patches of the last expansion, and I might down the road, but I really wanted to jump into the Midnight stuff, so I did the catch-up questing to get some of the story and started playing.

    Seeing the redone zones of Everson Woods and Silvermoon was amazing. The area is so much larger now than it was before. The new Zul’Aman is fun. I’m about to get into Harandar, so we will see how I like that one.

    Playing WOW is always a fascinating time sink. I have to make sure I have the time to really get into it, so I’m breaking down my gameplay to a few days a week. I don’t really get into endgame content like raiding because I’m not great with massive boss fights and don’t really have time to learn all those mechanics. I am very much a storyline player. I’m hear for the story and not much else. Once I finish the story, I’ll probably be done until they release more.

    I understand they have a much faster release cadence on patches now, so maybe I won’t drop out of the game for a year at a time. We will see. Either way, it feels good to be back.

  • Simon Miller interviews Paul Wight (Big Show)

    This has to be the funniest interview I’ve ever seen. Paul is hilarious!

  • Tacos

    The world needs more tacos. That is all.

  • Really Utah?!

    I am a resident of Utah. Have been for most of my life. I was born and raised in this state. I moved out for about seven years and then moved back and have been here ever since. I always felt Utah had more of a personal freedom slant as I was growing up because that was the mentality of the communities I grew up in. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case as I get older because we keep passing laws that restrict what people can do in their own home.

    The latest law that just went into effect that is taking us down this road is a new VPN law that holds websites liable for people using VPNs to bypass age verification checks. I’m sure this is a result of the stupid porn law that Utah created a few years back that requires porn sites to verify the user’s age.

    What irritates me about this is most of this boils down to lawmakers thinking they know better than the people they serve and forcing rules upon us because “think of the children! We must protect the children!” And the stupid thing about all this is all the data and reports that keep coming out about age verification laws in the US and around the world causing data leaks and hacks that reveal information. We claim that we respect privacy in the US, but I don’t think that is true anymore especially in law makers eyes.

    Now it seems the state I have called home for most of my life is leading the way into a new future where you aren’t allowed to do what you want online without passing a bunch of checks and verifications, so someone out there will feel better about the stuff you look at.

    Anyway, I’m just ranting, but I am annoyed. I think I’ll have to look into what I can do as a citizen of this state to help get this thrown out.

    Here is the article by the way that set me off from Tom’s Hardware:

    Utah first state to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs — law goes into effect, designed to prevent bypassing age checks

  • OS Gaming Competition

    Another example of competition improving gaming for everyone. Check it out: Valve Is Forcing Microsoft To Make Significant Improvements To Windows Gaming Performance – Report

    I hope Valve continues to give Windows a run for their money. I like that Microsoft is responding with putting a gaming focus on Windows. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

    I won’t lie, I’ve been tempted to jump back onto a gaming-focused version of Linux like Bazzite or CachyOS, but I’m also interested to see how some of the changes to Windows will look. I know that the latest gaming mode is now live for all Windows users with an update. I’ll have to look into that as well and give that a try.

  • Under the Mat

    I love silly wrestling stuff, so when Simon Miller started up a new YouTube channel called Under the Mat where he interviews people in the style of Zach Galifianakis’s Between Two Ferns show. It is hilarious, and his banter with other professional wrestlers just cracks me up.

    Here is the latest one with Thunder Rosa. Their chemistry together is amazing to watch.

  • Printer Troubles

    It always fascinates me how people online tend to write things in a “worst case scenario” way when there are clearly other options or even changes that can be made to improve the experience. I’m sure most of it is done for content engagement purposes especially on X where someone with a blue check mark can make money off of a post that gets a lot of engagement.

    This post is on Twitter is a perfect example of this type of content. I understand this individuals frustration with printers especially if they wish to purchase one that is more privacy focused. Sadly, many printers on the market today are not for the reasons identified if you read the whole post.

    I will point out that the writer goes after HP and their Instant Ink subscription service, which in my opinion is widely misunderstood by most people. However, I question why someone with privacy in mind would even purchase an HP printer or sign up for Instant Ink on top of that. I realize HP is a very well known printer brand and might still be the biggest printer brand on the market. It was for awhile there if it isn’t anymore. So, I can understand why HP might have been the printer of choice.

    There are workarounds for most of the complaints brought up. First, make sure you purchase an HP printer that is an optional HP+ printer. This will allow you to choose not to participate in that. HP+ requires that you only print using HP ink, so by not signing up, you can use off-brand ink.

    Also, avoid purchasing the cheap HP printers. The cheap ones usually don’t have a USB port to plug the printer into a computer. Get one that does. HP will put a sticker over it because they want you to connect to wi-fi. You don’t have to.

    Next, plug your printer in to your computer. You will need to purchase a USB-A to USB-B cable to hook it up. You probably have one in your house already if you’ve owned a printer you had connected to a computer since the printer cable hasn’t changed in as long as I can remember.

    Goto HP’s website and download the software for your printer or just turn the printer on and allow the operating system to recognize it and install a basic driver for the printer. And there you go. You should be in business to start printing the way the writer on X wants to.

    But I will say it would be nice to see a company step up and just make a basic printer again and not bombard us with all this extra stuff.

  • Wrestlemania 42

    This past weekend was Wrestlemania 42. I would have loved to watch it, but I had to work. I also don’t have the ESPN app with the subscription to watch it because I can’t afford another $29.99/month subscription, so I followed most of the event via Twitter and YouTube watching clips and reading reactions.

    The event looks like it had one really bad night and one really good night. I find that fascinating. Sad that I couldn’t watch the whole thing, but it is what it is.

    I will say this, I saw a clip of Brock Lesner taking off his gear and looking like he is done. I actually got emotional watching it. If he really is done, I am happy to have been a fan during his run off and on with WWE. Brock was always fun to watch, and he was amazing at what he did.